Hello Splinterlands Summoners and welcome to another edition of Community Engagement Challenge! Rulesets define battles in Splinterlands and there are several types of them. Rulesets can affect abilities like Back to Basic and Silenced Summoners. There are also rulesets that affect attacks like Keep Your Distance or Melee Mayhem. We, as summoners should be ready for any ruleset. We should have a team and in mind to take advantage of or face any of these rulesets to get the victory. The battles I'm going to show has the Up Close and Personal ruleset - we can only summon melee units.

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Up Close and Personal Units and Strategy

Up Close and Personal ruleset only allows melee units. Thus, it's best to choose units with dual attacks like melee and magic or melee and ranged. This way, the unit deals more damage. It's also good to pick units that has abilities like Opportunity, Sneak or Charge so that it can attack in every turn. Finally, it's best to use summoners that grant useful abilities in these battles like Thorns. It's also great if the summoners can boost the teams stats to maximize their potential against melee units like additional melee attack or armor. I'll show a couple of battles where this particular ruleset was featured and share my thoughts on them.

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Battle 1

In the following battle, I chose the Fire Splinter. The archon, Fithe Bladestone grants two additional armor stat, a very effective defense against melee attacks. The team I picked has dual attack units and abilities to attack from any position.

My Team

Drybone Megalodon (tank)

Drybone Megalodon is a rare tank. It deals four melee damage and has two speed. For defense it has three armor and six health, great stats for a tank. More importantly, it has the Flank ability that grants the Reach ability to the second position unit, enabling it to attack from that position.

Molten Elemental (second position)

The Molten Elemental is a dual attack unit having both melee and ranged attacks. It deals two ranged and melee damage and very fast with four speed. It also has an armor and five health for sustainability.

Great Bear Druid (third position)

The Great Bear Druid is a legendary card from the Foundation set. It has dual attack of melee and magic. It's other stats are two speed and six health.

Vengeful Monk (fourth position)

The Vengeful Monk is another unit from the Foundation set and is one of my favorites. It's just a common unit but it has decent stats and ability. It deals two melee damage and has the Opportunity ability, making it attack from any position.

Echelon (fifth position)

Echelon is a Fire unit of the Foundation set. It deals one melee damage and also has the Opportunity ability, making it a great unit to combo with the Vengeful Monk.

Surly Drunk (sixth position)

Surly Drunk is a legendary one mana unit. It deals one melee damage and has the Opportunity ability.

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The Opponent Team

I can't say I'm impressed with the opponent's team. He used the Water Splinter with Marlai Singariel as the archon. She doesn't help her team in this ruleset since her buff is additional magic attack. On the other hand, his team composition is decent enough. On tank duties he has one of the best reward tanks in the game: Commander Slade. He is perfect in this ruleset having the tools against melee attackers. His offensive stats are great with three melee damage and four speed. However, it's his defensive stats and abilities that make him great against melee. He has five armor and eight health while having Enfeeble and Dodge abilities. He can stand toe to toe against even legendary tanks. He is weak against magic attacks though so this ruleset is perfect for him. The rest of the team can attack from anywhere except for his last unit which he used to guard against Sneak attackers.

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The Battle

Commander Slade showed his skills in this battle weakening my tank while also dealing considerable damage. However, my team and archon had the better synergy. Once his Commander Slade was eliminated, it was an easy victory for my team.

Link to Battle

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Battle 2

Here is a battle that I lost. In this battle, I had the worse team and made the same mistake my opponent made in the first battle. My archon did not grant any useful abilities to my team and one of my units had no ability to attack from any position. This was an earlier battle and I learned my lesson from this one.

Link to Battle

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Conclusion

In both battles where the ruleset was Up Close and Personal, I showed how to properly choose an archon and the team composition to maximize our winning chances. The archon grants defensive abilities to fend of melee attacks while the rest of the team should be able to attack from any position. Also, it would be great if there are dual attack units in your team like Olivia of the Brook or Quora Towershead. There are a lot of rulesets in Splinterlands making each battle unique. We should always be prepared and have a team ready to use for each ruleset.